The Earlstone Mansion
by dib07
Summary: Invader Zim oneshot. Zim has to drag himself to another one of Dib's paranormal adventures, which is sure to leave him in therapy.


**The Earlstone Mansion - a oneshot - by Dib07**

_**Summary: **_

_Zim has to drag himself to another one of Dib's paranormal adventures, which is sure to leave him in therapy._

_**Disclaimer:**_

_I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine. _

_**Warnings:**_

_Light swearing. Some blood references._

* * *

**Dib07: **Hello, all! This is more of a light-hearted oneshot that I needed to get done. (Though, fair to say, I can't seem to be able to write anything light-hearted. The angst just gets in somehow.) This story been in my head for months, but I never got the chance to write it until now. I thought of working it into two chapters, and ended up just submitting the whole thing. Well, that's it! I hope you enjoy! And thank you for reading!

* * *

-x-

**The Earlstone Mansion**

-x-

He stood over it, hands planted on his hips because he didn't know quite where else to put them.

It lay on its side, its hind legs strewn haphazardly over each other, one eye glazed forever upward at the winking afternoon sun. He took this moment to breathe out, murmuring a soft curse before rubbing away the sweat on his brow. Behind the car were long black marks where the wheels had burned into the asphalt and leaf slush.

The front bender was bent, but his old Toyota was built like a brick, and had come out of the fight bruised but undefeated. Dib didn't feel undefeated. He felt like a goddamn murderer.

He turned away, hand over his eyes, but in seconds he was glaring down at the body again in that same slack-jawed way. Any moment now another car would drive by, and the driver would surely tell the world what he'd just done.

The side passenger door clicked open in the stony silence of autumn and a stern creature with old eyes stepped out onto black tarmac, his right antenna doing that lifting flagpole thing, his claws sharply clenched around Gir's little nubby paw, the other hand holding his 3DS gaming device. Dib walked over, flashing out his arms as a means to shepherd them back into the car – but there was no fooling a worn soldier. Zim spent one moment trying to peer around the young man's legs to get a decent look, but all in all, there was little the young man could do. Zim dived between his gaunt legs, lugging Gir along with a great tug and approached the body.

The trees mourned as they gently swept from side to side: spilling their red and gold leaves that fell and twirled onto the wet asphalt. Zim's small shadow descended over a body of soft sorrel fur that was almost golden in hue. Its black antlers were long and sharp. A second too late he jabbed his 3DS in front of Gir's eyes as if he could use it as a blindfold. Using the point of his toe, he poked the body with it. The animal did not respond. Zim then threw accusing glares at his friend. "You... you fool!" His voice faltered as if he was on the tip of a precipice. "You killed the thing!"

"Not on purpose! It just ran out in front of me!" He threw out a hand in exasperation before finally letting it rest on his forehead. He did not feel the cold as icy winds breezed down the road, the trees swaying to a hypnotic melody.

"It's leaking red." While Zim chose this moment to freeze and stare, Gir doing the same, Dib put hands on the Irken's bony shoulders to bodily move him away like he was shifting him from a dangerous acid spill. "Do you think it might have family?" He blithely continued.

_It better not._ He thought, going to look at the body for the fortieth time before stopping himself. He'd done quite enough staring already. "Look. Get back in the car, both of you. And put your disguise back on Zim! Why do you keep taking it off? At least Gir can manage!"

Zim could barely take his eyes off the body. He'd never seen a wild Earth beast this up close before, and the _realness _of it captivated him, but its limp inertia rattled his psyche for reasons he did not understand. He had seen death aplenty in battle.

"Zim! Do you want me to throw you in?"

"No need to get so dramatic, human." He clambered back in, mostly to get out of the cold rather than obeying the words of his subordinate. But Gir wasn't so obedient. He started chasing after the twirling leaves as the wind carried them to and fro. "Gir! Get back in here! You'll get your paws all dirty!"

Gir was already tucking two leaves under one arm, but every time he reached for more, the ones he had captured flew right out of his grasp.

Zim blew out an aggravated sigh, considered his Pokémon game a moment, and dropped it onto the seat before clambering back out, cussing every inch of the way, and grabbed his wayward child before Gir could run out onto the road. Nubby paws went to reach for more leaves. "You wanna end up like that...moose thing over there?" He coughed, surprised when Gir only pulled against him, "Now get inside!" He stuffed dog-disguised robot back onto the rear seat before following in him and slamming the car door shut. He couldn't help but fold his arms into their customary positions, lips sliding away to reveal the edges of his teeth as he watched Dib consider the mess he had made outside.

_Why doesn't that boy just toughen up?_

The radio was playing Beethoven's ninth symphony, with the engine idling and humming - the interior toasty and warm from the car's heater. His turtleneck sweater, knitted gloves and thick woollen booties kept out most of the chill, but he was not a fan of the icy wind on his antenna, or the sudden ungracious temperature drop just from opening the car door.

Being so far up on the seat thanks to the generous piles of cushion enabled him to see through his window, his legs left to hang over them.

He'd already fixed the car once on the way up this blasted road, having not realized that Dib would strike every living thing along the way. He'd tightened the spanner on the troublesome bolt that wouldn't come loose, and each time he tried to turn it, he had to stop to massage away the sudden sting in his wrist. Gir had noticed. He was noticing a lot of things.

"Can I play?" Gir grabbed the little 3DS console before Zim could react.

"Don't you dare start a new game! I'm halfway through a gym-boss-person!"

"Ooh, you have a pretty weasel!"

"Yes, that's right. And he bites everything into sparkly dust stars." He idly watched Gir fumble with the controls before his eyes lifted to observe the Dib. The human had doubled over to lift the animal's hind legs in his hands. Slowly but surely, he would start to drag it to the edge of the road. It must have been quite an effort, for the young man was huffing and puffing, and stopping often to rub the sweat on his brow, eyes hunting around for signs of danger/witnesses like one of those meerkats watching for eagles on TV.

Leaves bounced and flew over the windshield. When Dib finally planted his hands on the car door handle and pulled it open, his face was so red that Zim was sure he was about to pop. He slumped into the seat, making the car wobble, and shut the door. The silence would have been excruciating, but Zim turned to look at him with a slightly impertinent smile.

"You're a terrible driver, Dib stink. We should go back before you blunder into something else. This hunk of vehicle you call a car is about to fall apart anyway."

Dib planted a hand on the steering wheel to keep it from shaking, his lips thin and grey. Mud was wedged under his fingernails and the skin of his knuckles were scraped and smudged with soil and some parts animal blood. As of this moment, he looked like he had just come out of the forest from a thirty mile hike.

His antenna arched forwards as he waited for a response.

Dib's eyes were glued the bloodied patch of road before them. He swiped off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes as if he could clear out what he had seen. "We're only three miles away. We're not turning back. It just...happened! What's it to you anyway? I'm sure you killed thousands of aliens... or whatever... back on your home world or wherever they would send you."

At that, Zim's dainty smile grew cold and he turned towards the side window.

There was no mistaking the wince of guilt. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring that up."

The Irken did not unstiffen, or look away from the window. "Are you still yapping? No? Good. Then let's go."

Dib lifted the handbrake, and the car gently weaved around the area before he was accelerating, desperate to put distance between them and the incident. Zim was blithely content to simply gaze out the car window and watch the scenery pass by in a portrait of leaves as he built new memories. Above the weeping line of trees, snow clad mountain tops peeked above or through the thick tree belt in white flashes. Wet leaves plastered the road in sorrel or crimson blankets. Everything was filled with so many colours. There were few things to suggest civilised development and nation-driven industry. There were no street lamps, only wavering power lines above them, and even they looked out of place. Nature was on every side, with only the road cutting through the wilderness as the only way through. He was so used to structures, high-rise walls, and hi tech configurations that it was strange to see no boundaries, no lines, only miles and miles of freedom.

He leaned back in his seat, claws in his lap as Gir played on his 3DS system.

Dib reached up and began pressing buttons on the SatNav system. The car was bumping along a stretch of crumbling road that was littered with potholes, causing the car and its occupants to shudder each time they encountered a less than favourable surface.

Unrolling a strip of taffy from a grocery bag they'd bought earlier from a gas station, Gir cut off a long piece and nibbled at one end. He offered Zim a piece, but he shook his head. Gir, disappointed, went back to nibbling the taffy with less enthusiasm.

"We should be there by now, unless I missed a turning." Dib shortly explained. He was still red in the cheeks.

The Irken rolled his eyes and drew a tired sigh. "Once again I have fallen victim to your inevitable folly of getting us lost."

"No, no we're close."

"Close to what? An old 'spooky' building that should be demolished for the fungus and dust it contains? We passed hundreds of those on the way up here. What makes this one so fucking special?"

At that Dib smiled, his glasses taking on a white sheen that obscured his eyes. "Because Edward Earlstone lived there!"

The old Irken's attention on the flowing scenery broke for a moment so that he could give his friend a hard look. "Earls Stone... who?"

"Edward Earlstone! Come on, I was talking to you about this last night!"

Zim, who had a tendency to forget a lot of things, pretended he knew all along. "Oh yes, THAT Edward!"

"Yeah. They all say he went all bonkers mad. As crazy as crazy can go."

"So the human went mad. Big deal. You humans all have your 'mad' moments, some of it lasting longer than it should!"

"Do you believe in ghosts, Zim?" The cadence in his voice grew lighter whenever he teased him. That goofy smile was still there, making the years fall off his face.

"No, Dib. I do not. You believe in all this..." He gestured at the air, "mumbo jumbo. And that's all it is! Mumbo! Jumbo!"

The human sobered up a little in the face of his disbelief and scepticism. "It's_ not_ mumbo jumbo! Ghosts are real, and so are supernatural events! Each one is and can be a real phenomenon! It's all there! You've just got to see it with your own eyes!"

Zim chuckled, more from the fact that Dib was taking this so seriously. He had been so wrapped up in it as a kid, always diving into magazines and books on anything paranormal, and hiding out in the school yard in the dark for the supposed 'old King of Lincoln' to appear.

Dib kept one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on his knee with his eyes glued to the road. Whenever he started to talk about the latest ghostly haunting he'd discovered from the media, or even from his field work, be it possessed dolls, 'evil' houses, haunted railway bridges or pens, a certain eagerness possessed the man, swinging him back to the jubilance of youth, and his old passions came spilling out. Zim was envious that he had time to spare on these 'paranormal' fancies.

"Let me just fill you in on some of the details, Fudge. Edward Earlstone was a very wealthy man who explored the world seeking rare and religious artefacts. He went to see a Mayan temple called Guatemmala in Tikal which dates back to the eighth century A.D before the civilisation's mysterious decline. He went to the pyramids of Giza, and trekked through the dark mountains of Tibet to find the loneliest Monastery. Apparently he boarded a ship that took him to the Arctic to find the infamous wrecks of HMS _Erebus _and _Terror._ He went to every dark corner of the world, _looking_ for something, and haemorrhaged his money as a result."

"He sounded like he was a very...busy...eh...human man..." Zim could think of nothing else to say. Dib kind of went off the walls when he started jabbering on about paranormal this and paranormal that.

"Oh, he was a busy man alright. He had a wife and a few mistresses on the side, according to the newspapers anyway. He had kids, and this amazing house that we're about to see! But one day, when he got back from an expedition, he picked up an axe and chopped up his whole family."

"R-Right. Sure he did." He went to smile, thinking he was sussing the joke, but Dib continued in that heated excitement that left him feeling rather alienated.

"Now everyone thinks the house and anything in it is cursed." Dib continued, his face lightening up, an easy boyish smile framing his lips despite the morbid telling of the tale. "No one could explain what happened. They found Edward at the bottom of the lake, naked, with the Bible open to Revelations not far from the scene." He paused to give Zim an excited grin. "They say his ghost haunts the old Earlstone Mansion! This is gonna be great!"

He knew Dib was just saying these things to see how he would react, to get him scared and agitated, unless he wanted Zim onboard with his beliefs, and knew no other way of doing it than throwing him into the demon pit.

"There's supposed to be this relic, Zim! This artefact he found from Tibet or Egypt or even from the Hercynian forests in Germany. But this artefact! It can supposedly grant any wish!"

"I worry about you, Dib. This foolishness of yours is getting a bit excessive, don't you think?" He was already thinking of how he was going to cope walking around a cold and dirty building while Dib spun around, snapping shots at every little stupid thing that looked the smallest bit 'spooky.' They'd be a lot of rust in those places. You got diseases from rust, right? And they'd be fungus. And stuff. Gir would smear himself in every disease going, and bring it back with him, and he already felt like his body was fighting every disease going.

Another look at the Irken's wide fuchsia eyes earned him another sharp reprimand. "I won't say it again, put your disguise on! Where the heck did you put it?"

"The lenses hurt, and the hairpiece scratches at my antennae!"

"Oh, so you don't mind being seen then?" Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, he blindly hunted for the items. He popped open the cubby hole under the dash and procured a wig and a pair of eye contacts where Zim had poorly tried to hide them. He tossed them onto the old bug's lap.

Zim lifted those eyes again in obvious derision as if Dib had just asked him to strip naked. He pushed in those lenses with slow tedium, fully aware of the human watching, but he did not wish to cause a scene that would further attract Dib to the issue. Blinking uncomfortably, tears budding in his eyes, he looked out the window, strangling the wig with his knitted gloves.

There was a road sign, the one he recognised from an old photo in a newspaper article that had covered the Earlstone case way back in the 1900's. Old Road, was all it said. There, the road diverted, and Dib took a right turn, encountering no other passing cars, only crows. They lined the sides of the road, pecking the ground for worms or bugs.

Around the corner and emerging through thin spindly trees, stood a remarkably gloomy and grey building that looked like it was straight out of some historical old B movie. It's right half was thickly cloaked with the greenest ivy, the other half a stone cold grey with yawning windows and a roof that acted more like a frowning brow which made premature shadows darken around the second storey balconies.

"Well, here we are."

Zim peered out of the window. The grounds were covered in yellow tape that fluttered in the wind. It had been carelessly wrapped or flung around trees, brick wall bollards or statues. Some had come loose, flying and whipping in the wind like so many yellow tails. He brought a gloved claw to his chest, stunned at how very _ugly _it all looked. A bombsite held more promise.

"You oookaay?" Came Gir's terrible pleading.

Zim snapped him a look. "I'm fine! Stop looking at me like that!"

Dib jammed on the handbrake. He'd parked in the shifting shadows from the oak tree overhead. Zim opened the door and dropped out onto the gravel, his glittery eyes looking at the mansion beyond the courtyard. The grey Georgian building, many of its windows broken or hanging open, carried a brooding coldness that he did want to trespass. There was no birdsong, only the scuttling of leaves and the creak of bark as sullen trees rocked to and fro.

Dib stepped out after him, breathing in the cold air with a smile as if he'd just stepped out onto a sunny beach.

Autumn leaves fluttered across the centre of a bleak courtyard that held a muddy flowerbed – a flowerbed that crowned a dirty and bird-pooped encrusted water fountain that had an evil looking stone fish coming out of its pipe.

Gir may as well have stepped onto that same sunny beach with Dib. He was playing on the 3DS with astonishing concentration: hardly lifting his mix-matched eyes to look at where they were going. They could have easily stopped by the pit of Hades and Gir would not have paid any more attention.

Zim looked to the Georgian mansion with a grunt. It was just another insignificant building. Haunted? No. Just filthy and horrid. That was why no one came here. Just foolish dolts like the Dib.

The peeling green door had been set like a crooked mouth, and the windows above it were its dark, glassy eyes. One of the green window shutters kept loudly closing in the wind.

Friendly, this place was not, and the Irken was certain it would be just as cold and as unwelcoming inside its walls as it was on the outside. Couldn't Dib have chosen a warmer 'haunted' house to investigate? One that was a little more cheerful?

He glowered at the place while Dib popped open the trunk of the car and started taking his gear out.

Crows hobbled for space on the metal frame of a swing nearby that rustily squeaked now and then as it rocked in the wind.

"Gir. Don't wander too far." He called, noticing that the robot in the doggy suit was still busy playing his game and toddling here and there without looking to see where he was going.

"Here." Dib shoved an old black device into his barely-prepared claws. He had to clutch at it twice before it fell onto his toes. "Just point and click. And don't drop it. It's almost as old as you are."

"What is this clunky thing?" He turned it over in his hands, the repulsion becoming harder to hide.

"It's a Polaroid camera. They're the best for taking pictures of orbs, ghosts and electrical disturbances." The young man was clipping things onto his belt, stuffing gizmos into his pockets and shrugging a satchel strap over his shoulder. He had basically become a walking library of gadgets that was either strapped or hooked or clipped onto him. When he took a step, he jingled. For once, Zim was glad someone else was suffering a weight on their back.

After closing the trunk he jingled towards the courtyard. Zim followed behind in his shadow, Gir tagging along behind. The crows were watching from their huddled positions along the iron fence or from the weeping branches. He gave them a long-slanted grimace, picked up a stone, and threw it at one of the dark, huddled birds. They sprang upwards and outwards with their dark wings, screaming and cawing. Zim intrepidly watched this feathery retreat with a frozen stare before squaring his gaze at the other dozens of crows that hadn't been perturbed in the slightest, and had remained rooted to their perches like wax figurines.

The yellow tape, flapping and twisting, read in capital block print:** DO NOT ENTER - PRIVATE PROPERTY. **

Possessing a savvy walk as if he was still on that fictional beach, Dib ducked or weaved under the offending tape without even pausing to read the warnings.

Zim hurried to keep up with his much larger and lengthier strides. "But... but we can't go in there! Do you really want to get eaten by the authorities?"

"That's just to keep the hooligans out."

"Hooligans like you!" He pointed with a crooked claw even though the human wasn't looking. His attention was on the house and its peeling front door. He approached it, looking at its heavy oak timbre and peeling olive paint that ill-suited a house of grey brick and mortar. The paint was flaking so copiously that it had begun to reveal the rotten black wood beneath.

Zim watched the young man amateurishly reach out, grab the iron doorknob, and turn it as if it would just open magically for him. It did not. "Damn. Locked." It was hard to even identify him as Professor Membrane's son sometimes.

"Well, this was fun." Zim turned round to head back to the car waiting in the shadows and sunshine beyond the scum of leaves and crows.

"Hold on! There's got to be a way in!"

"Other than blowing a way in."

Dib gave him that look – his left brow raised – perhaps never sure what to make of the Irken's grammar, his humour – or the lack of it. Zim gave him a begrudged sigh in return before the human walked around the side of the house.

Heaps of rubbish had been left to spoil beneath the rain and sun. Wooden pallets had long since rotted through; upending their nails like claws.

Dib approached a side window. Its glass had splintered, falling away like melting icicles. Picking up a stick from the rubbish pile and wobbly standing on an old oil drum to reach, he used it to smash away the rest of the glass that stubbornly clung to the frame before reaching in to fiddle with the latch. He turned the catch, and he pushed frame out to widen the opening. He took a brief look inside, shining his flashlight around like some would-be cat burglar.

Dib stepped down from the oil drum after clipping his flashlight back into his belt like it was some firearm, and hoisted Zim into his arms. "Okay. After you butterball."

"Oh no! You're getting eaten by giant rats and the authorities first! Not me!" The ease with how he did this only darkened the alien's otherwise pale cheeks. "Hey! I don't need your horrible hands to help me get through this horrible window!"

He passed the Irken through the open window anyway with that cheerful smile, giving the bug a moment to see his way in the dank gloom that opened out before him in crystal-clear clarity without the need of a flashlight. There was a table under the window, forestalling a nasty drop, but the wooden surface was caked in thick dust, clutter, bird poop, shiny glass splinters, and more dust. He could barely move in the fear of touching any of it.

"Move over Zim! I'm coming in with Gir!"

For a moment Zim half believed the man would never fit his big head through, but he made it in, boots crunching on glass and debris with Gir cradled under one arm. "Whooo!" Gir kicked his legs out. "Do it again!"

"On the way out, I will." Dib promised.

The flashlight preceding his every move, head turn or hand inclination, its brightly yellow cone zoned in and over the room they had ended up in. Huge grey walls answered back, dark corners reaching forwards out of the black. Counter tops, butchery boards, tables and skewered chairs bounced into existence. The floor was an assemblage of cracked and splintered old grey and green tiles that must have been ugly to look upon, even when they were new.

A large stone hearth loomed out at them from the centre of the room: its pit as dark as the void.

Zim could not make sense of the room's primitiveness, and therefore its function, but Dib calmed his woes with his usual and happy ramblings. "It looks like we're in Edward's old pantry and kitchen. Back in the day they were big old rooms where the servants cooked and cleaned for their masters. I wonder if they tried to poison Edward down here, and if that was the reason he went coo-coo crazy."

Suddenly Zim needed tape. Lots and lots of tape to slather the human's big mouth with it.

A flashlight was hurled into his chest, causing him to cough which then made dust furl into the stagnant air like swirling, weaving spirits. He almost chucked it back at Dib's head that was an eternally tempting target. Wasn't that stupid Polaroid camera enough to carry?

"It's so that you can see in the dark." Dib was working his way off the giant serving table and onto the loose and cracked tiling below. Gir was practically hidden in the dark. You could only see his cyan eyes through the doggy mask, and the glare of the 3DS screen.

"I can see well enough in the dark! Even if I were dumb and blind I could still find you with all that jingling you make!"

Using his own flashlight, Dib roamed around the room, a video cam on his left shoulder. So far as Zim could see, there was nothing to observe but dry dusty stone walls with the occasional crooked item of furniture, but Dib looked committed to recording every boring inch of this place. Zim pinched his bright eyes shut with one hand, giving out a low, pained groan.

He was starting to see Dib as less of a friend and more of a wayward pet that could not be controlled.

The human drew out the EMF detector, juggling the video cam, flashlight and now the EMF in the dark. His light made the shadows bounce and slip around them like living things of ink and malice. Zim jumped down from the table, wishing he didn't feel compelled to follow the human around.

"Well, I don't see any of these 'phenomenons!'" He lifted one claw in exasperation, the other hand murderously clutching the camera.

Dib was deaf to his complaints. He stood there, flashlight honed in on the wall, eyes and ears tuned to something else, something afar. "Do you hear that? Sounds like...like music."

Zim strained to hear with one antenna, but noticed nothing save the clicking and humming of the EMF detector: an instrument that went crazy whenever it drew too close to his PAK. "You're just _trying_ to creep me out! Well it won't work! Do you really think soldiers are gonna jump at their own shadows?" He had to focus to keep his voice steady. No way was he going to let Dib freak him out, not even by a smidgen. He'd prove that this house was just a dilapidated shack that was in dire need of a good bulldozer. Ghosts? Ghouls? He'd never heard of such fairytale tosh.

But there was no mistaking the very real chill that seeped through his sweater and into his bones. He hugged himself, wishing that Gir and Dib weren't having such a fun time.

"Zim! Take some pictures will you? Just press that top button. You love pressing buttons, right?"

He clicked it. The camera blinded him in one great white flash. Without being able to see, he blundered into the leg of the butcher table.

Dib plowed forwards into the next dark room with steady deliberation, flashlight bobbing and weaving as it cut a golden path through the black, the EMF device creating unsettling and crackling noises.

The laundry room was another sad representation of the stately house's neglect and disrepair. The walls were stained with fermenting algae and other funguses, and every surface was encrusted with more bird poop, glass, or debris that had gone black with rot. A cupboard had been left to swing open, its insides choked with bloodied feathers. Zim threw a hand to his mouth when he felt a cry rise in his throat.

"Amazing." Dib seemed to be observing a different place: a different world. His mouth was partly open in wonder, his eyes glittery behind his lenses as if he was in some brightly lit shop selling cotton candy in every colour and flavour. His steps were hesitant and slow as he soaked in every dirty inch of the place.

Something scuttled across the floor. As if he was in charge of a weapon, he clicked the button and the camera flashed, the printed photo rolling out. The croaky shriek that followed had Dib wildly spinning round, setting the bright glaze of his flashlight on Zim's pale face. "Are you okay? What happened?"

The Irken nervously ran his claws up and down the sleeve of his arm. "Will you g-get that light out of my face!"

"But why did you scream?"

"I didn't scream!" He was wincing in the light, and from the shame of crying out. Dib waved the light around, and saw something dart across the floorboards. Zim squirmed, wrapping his arms around himself as he watched the very same spider disappear down a hole.

The human sighed, realizing he'd just caught the soldier in the frame of his recording. Just as well he loved mammoth editing sessions. "Your. Disguise!" He grunted. The huge red eyes were gleaming back at him, fully exposed without the pretention the lenses offered. But, he supposed, there was very little use badgering the bastard when he hadn't been wearing the wig either.

Looking testily for that spider as if it might pounce back up from the depths the moment he lowered his guard, the Irken did his usual displeased chuffing and posturing – a behaviour he flaunted when he was agitated – but he very soon adopted that nervous slouch again, eyes everywhere.

A door slammed shut behind them. Dib levelled the cam onto his shoulder, keeping the closed door perfectly in frame. His EMF detector was crackling between his jingling steps – the EMF going crazy whenever the Elite stepped too close to him.

"T-That was just the wind." The Irken put in, his claws creeping up and reaching out to snag hold of Dib's jacket edge. There had been a breeze when they'd arrived, hadn't there? The leaves had been whirling along the road, the trees shuddering and moaning rhythmically in the squalling winds. Of course draughts were going to blow through, and make doors swing open and close.

The Irken had to look twice at his old nemesis. Dib was grinning, one eye squinting into the eyepiece of the camera. "If you're here Edward, make a sign, make a sound. Any sound."

"Hello Edward." Added Gir, stupidly waving to no one in particular.

Zim couldn't believe it. "You two stop playing around! This isn't funny!"

Dib walked slowly, his footfalls creaking. Zim miserably watched, hating them both. "Do you still haunt this house, Edward?" The investigator asked in a painfully casual tone.

"Dib! Stop. It!" The Elite warned.

Heavy creaks started on the floorboards above them from one of the upstairs bedrooms. Dib did a dramatic tilt as he aimed his camera upwards. Zim tracked the sounds warily with his eyes, right antenna lifting, yet it was somehow impossibly wilting in the same instant. "R-Rats." He said with a shiver he could not repress.

"They must be mighty big rats, Zim." He was pushing the door that had slammed closed – and was walking across a creaky and dusty hallway to the parlour – another room boasting old tired green with green velvet fabric on the solemn chairs, green curtains, green floor and tapestries. It was a large room and unbearably cold. Zim huddled on the spot, looking around in the near-dark as Dib's cone of light danced around them.

Another large and elaborate fireplace dominated the focal point of the chamber, and above it, situated in a heavy brass frame was an oil painting of a very ugly looking man. A long string of bird poop had slithered down its centre like a streak of white paint. A gloomy man staring out of gloomy eyes with a gloomy dog stood by a picket fence, one hand grimly gripping a cane, the other holding an open book. Behind him the painted skies were a gunmetal grey, the clouds swirling and massing into a fictional storm. Dib took a particularly long time recording the oil painting with his video cam, stepping to one side, and then closer as he made sure to catch every angle in the glow of his flashlight.

"They say everything Edward owned is cursed, including this painting of him, and all his furnishings, down to the very fork he used to kill his late wife with." Dib said with impossible gusto.

"I thought you said he killed her with an axe."

"I like forks." Gir softly muttered.

Dib would gesture at certain objects as if he was perfectly knowledgeable on their personal anecdotes and histories. He would reel off their chronicles one by one, as an exhibiter would boast over his museum finds with incredible exactness. Zim did not even pretend to look interested or enlightened as Dib spieled out these specifics along with their monolithic accounts. His eyes would venture to the dirt caking the walls, surfaces and windows. He was careful not to bump into anything lest he get his sweater dirty, or aggravate anymore dust into dust-clouds that would hence aggravate his breathing.

His careful approaches however were immeasurably and consistently spoiled by Gir who would drop and roll in a kind of laconic compulsion. He would totter over to the lower windows and rub his paw onto the opaque glass, creating a circular view he could see out of, but he got his paws black and grubby in the process. Zim horrifically discovered that he was getting speckled in little black paw-prints whenever Gir brushed by, or to hold onto his hand or hug him. He would snarl and grunt at these new additions that appeared on the fabric of his clothing, and start to swat at Gir whenever he drew close, but it wasn't long before Dib would distract him with another useless 'haunted-mythical-piece-of-garbage' and then Gir would cling to his arm, smearing his sweater with even more grime.

The dining room was black and oppressive. A long oaken table was set in the middle, the chairs scattered around it. Again another gloomy portrait of this 'Edward' character loomed above it on the main wall overlooking the table. He was riding a black horse that appeared to have no eyes and had long pointed teeth. Edward looked little different from a vampire with long silken ebony hair and a sickly pallid face as he held up a sabre. His eyes seemed to bulge out of the portrait with uncanny realness.

There were no other pictures of his family. Only reoccurring paintings of this dog and horse.

Zim did not need another epitaph on the objects here, or on the horrible painting, but Dib was giving an almost breathless sermon with shiny adoration. It took him a moment or two to realize that the human was actually chattering away to himself and to the video camera without any interaction from the two of them.

"Oooh! I found it! I found it!" Gir, tiptoeing on squeaky feet, hurried over to a crystal decanter that was partly filled with a strange red substance.

"Gir, no don't touch it!" Dib swung the flashlight his way just in time to see him knock the decanter off its tiny wooden perch. Red splashed onto Gir's green felted dog suit while glass pooled over the floor in glittery fragments.

"Whoopsie." Just as Gir bent down to try and lick the red substance off the floor, Zim took him by the shoulder and pulled him away.

"Gir? What did I tell you about not touching anything?" He gave him his habitual look of disapproval. "And where's my game?"

Gir did that guilty smile which was shortly followed by an even guiltier giggle.

Dib looked down at the mess and made a frustrated sound.

"Gir?" Zim glared at him.

"I lost it." Gir kept guiltily smiling.

"You lost it? How?"

"I dunno. I dropped it, and now it's gone." That smile suddenly vaporized. Then the tears came. Gir magically produced a hanky and blew into it.

"Well that's just great!" Zim flicked his narrowed autumnal eyes up at the human instead. "What are we even _looking_ for? This whole thing is stupid! It's an old house of FILTH! In the middle of nowhere! Setting this whole place on fire would do everyone a favour!"

Dib gave that sly smile, his pupils darting to and fro, "The relic! Remember? He hid it, must have, inside the house somewhere. The one that can grant any wish?"

Zim's lips curled out of a snarl and into something of a half smile – suddenly finding himself on the cusp of laughing. Dib really had walked off the edge this time.

Gir was still crying. Zim did a poor job patting him on the back. He had been enjoying that awful game. "It's okay. You can...eh... stop crying."

"Why don't you get mad at me no more?" Came Gir's strange answer. "Why you no mad?"

"Excuse me, what?" He was about to press harder when a cupboard door slowly creaked open behind the human, revealing more feathers. They all turned to look as the door stopped halfway. Dib brought his camera up, but the event, however ordinary or unordinary, was over.

Every trip into Dib's adventure wonderland of the Woeful Paranormal started off like this. They'd be trudging through bleak and empty houses or graffiti-decorated asylums or caves, with Dib drinking up every stir of wind, every creak of door, every cellar and room - hoping to catch _something. _Then Dib would go home and hunt through his recordings and photos with inexhaustible energy, only to come away hours or days or weeks later with no evidence of ghosts or gremlins or whatever it was he had been expecting to find. Zim hopelessly admired the young man's optimism even when it led the human down every dead-end imaginable. Once upon a time he'd had enthusiasm and optimism too, just in different fields.

"We really came all the way here just so that you could make a stupid wish?"

"It's not as stupid as it sounds!"

"Really? Because I don't think it could sound any less... eh... stupider." He gave a displeased snort and shook his head. "I'm going to let you frolic in this dirty place for as long as you need to so that you can find this...wish of yours. I'm going to wait in the car."

"Wait! There's more to this place than you realize!"

Zim agitatedly stopped a moment. "No. I'm pretty sure your car has better prospects. I'm off, human. Play as long as you want. Come, Gir." He casually tottered over to the dining room doorway, half wondering how he meant to survive sitting in a car for hours when the door slammed shut inches shy of his face. He clapped his heels to a standstill, staring at his suddenly closed retreat, his breaths storming out of his chest. Realizing that Dib was watching, he felt his apathy return in spades, and he kicked at the door as if it had personally defied him.

"I've caught it on camera!" The young man was of no help at all. Zim gave him a seething stare, his cheeks a darker shade of green. As Gir watched, he grabbed a box, plonked it by the closed door and sprung his claws around the ornate doorknob, turning it sharply in growing rage. The door did not budge, and the doorknob turned uselessly beneath his command.

_Jammed._ He thought, and put his weight into it.

"Here Zim, let me." Dib came over looking confused, and put his video cam down on the table. The alien moved aside with a soured look, arms folding across his narrow chest. "Too shy to use your PAK around me, Fudge?"

"Just kick the door open, fool!" He stopped short when he heard or _thought_ he heard a trickle of laughter at his back. He snapped round, laying accusing eyes on Gir who was looking back in confusion.

"Did you just giggle, Gir?"

"No. But I can jiggle?" And he started to do a little dance. "That'll cheer you up, Master!"

Zim scanned the drab room's interior. Much of its original red and white wallpaper had come away at the walls, its colour now a faded salmon pink. The ornate plaster decor framing the ceiling had chipped away, with rubble lying wherever it had fallen. An old wind-up clock with its brass handles sat below the ugly portrait. He swore he could see the second-hand ticking.

Certain that he was hearing things, he turned back to the hunched and straining Dib as he pulled and heaved at the doorknob. When it sprung loose, it sent the young man sprawling backwards. Zim dived out of the way just before he got flattened.

"Yay! He did it!" Gir clapped his dirty paws together.

With a groan Zim stamped through the doorway, heading for the pantry and the way back out, but Dib was heading for the staircase, and jingled up each creaking step, recorder perched on one shoulder, the flashlight in the other hand as Gir bounced along behind him.

Though Zim could see every secret in the dark, he felt it pressing oppressively close as Dib took all warmth and light with him. This darkness and dust grew heavier, and he noticed the amazing way the ceiling seemed to expand as it grew taller, while the walls drew closer. With one antenna raised, he could hear the screaming banshee-winds howling around the walls outside. It seemed to get into the pipes and old spaces in the brickwork, reminding him of his own futilities. He stood hunched over, his eyes darting left and right. He would not believe in ghoulish fairytale-book ghoulies or misty apparitions mistaken for ghosts. There was No. Such. Thing!

"There are no ghosties and ghoulies!" He growled assertively, but the moment he tried to straighten his back and relax his shoulders, he curled up again almost immediately. "Eh, Dib! Wait for ZIM!" Despite the limp in his step, he hurried to the foyer and started up the stairs. The stairs were made out of ancient wood, and thunderously echoed whenever he placed a boot on them. The top of the banister was too high to reach so he grabbed hold of each banister rail as he pulled himself up one step at a time. Whenever he had his back turned he felt the approach of a pursuer, and each time he nervously jerked around there was nothing to see but drab and peeling wallpaper, blotches on every surface, and forgotten furnishings that looked like old relics begging for the furnace.

"Would you wait?" He cried up into the empty dark beyond where he was sure Dib must have gone.

As he made his way up he swore he could hear music in janky, tittering notes that imbued a creepy, unearthly melody. The tune was something akin to a lullaby.

Hadn't the Dib pig mentioned hearing music earlier?

The clanky notes grew louder as he drew closer to the top. A halo of light fell out of a doorway to his immediate right. "Dib beast? Didn't I tell you to..." He stopped, his antenna arching. Before him was a child's playroom that was softened with glowing luminosity from twirling lights that had been fashioned into a web of bulbs. The pearly blue walls were strangely immaculate compared to the ruination below. There was a little bed beside a bookcase, a little chair, a chest full of toys, and a desk, and on that desk was a musical box. This was where the music was coming from. Its lid was open, and twirling within it was a tiny decorative stag with antlers of black, and a coat of gold. Its shadow lay like a cutout on the wall. He could only assume that Dib had set this up to scare him.

"Dib. Dib this isn't funny!"

"What isn't funny?" Dib came up behind him, the recorder under one arm, Gir standing at his side with that lopsided stare.

"But... but you!" He turned to point at the musical box and instead turned back to a dark and old room. The musical notes had faded, and the room was no longer a pearl blue glowing with warmth, but something empty and in a state of decay. He could still feel this energy coming off the walls and furniture, and a presence he couldn't focus on. His antenna wobbled, trying to key-in on its source, his glittery wine colored eyes darting around. When Dib rested a hand on his shoulder, he swore he felt his head brush the ceiling when he jumped. "Didn't you see anything?"

The man must have hit a switch. Maybe he had one of those gizmos that operated every object in this house with the touch of a button - and there was no way he was falling for it!

Dib lifted up his EMF detector which promptly went berserk, its light keeping to a steady red as it crackled. The pitch was horrible against his antenna.

"The upper floor is crazy with ghostly activity! Maybe Edward's family still walk these rooms, never finding their way out!"

"Will you just stop it! You're scaring Gir!"

Gir couldn't have looked more indifferent if he tried.

"But I'm not doing anything! What did you see? What happened? Are you using that camera I gave you?"

"Your tricks are getting a little old, don't you think?"

"What tricks, Zim?"

"That music thingie you used! And the light effects! Very impressive! But you can't fool an Irken Elite!"

"But I haven't done anything!" Strangely, Dib's eye was on his antenna. It slowly started to dawn on Zim that Dib was reading his body language in the same way he was reading his instruments for clues – like one would watch the reactions of a cat's sixth sense in the presence of the unexplained.

Zim left the child's bedroom in a hurry. His skin was crawling with sensations he couldn't determine or understand, and his antenna agilely wavered erratically. He brushed a hand up and down one shaky arm. The camera was so heavy that he almost dropped it. Thankfully Dib noticed he was struggling and took it off him.

"Would you STOP that?"

"Stop what?"

"Stop using me like I'm some ghost-aerial transceiver!"

"But you can sense stuff, right? What do you feel right now?"

"Just a lot of rage – directed at you!"

"I feel funny." Gir exclaimed in all seriousness which made them both pause and look at him in disbelief.

A clock suddenly donged the hour from a room close by, but it barely covered the sudden spitting, screaming noise from another room next door. The scream flew out before he could plug it in. He threw his arms around Dib's leg as the human turned to the sound. The clock strangely struck three before going silent. Something was still scrabbling on the walls or the floor.

Zim's head was filled with images of little hairy monsters, but when he heard what sounded like claws being racked against wood he knew that it had to be the old master of the house crouched in wait. "It's him! That man in the picture! He's closing in! We've got to leave!"

"Zim, would you calm down? Edward's been dead for over a hundred years!"

"Please! Let's get out of here!"

Dib literally had to push himself forwards with Zim still clinging to his leg. "Mysterious Mysteries of Strange Mystery will be so excited when I send them a copy of my recordings! They'll broadcast it on the network within the hour!" It did not seem to occur to him in that moment that he was trespassing - and that he had an alien in multiple shots and videos.

"Don't go_ towards_ the scratchy scratching sounds!" Zim tried to pull him back but all he did was slow Dib's eager progress as he edged towards the sounds of evil.

It was coming from the bedroom. His flashlight caught bits and pieces of it. A great canopy hung down like old skin around the bed, and the cabinets and dressers stood in the leaping dark like silent spectres laden with silvery cobwebs. A crib stood off to one side. The flashlight excitedly bobbed round in the groping darkness. Zim could barely breathe as his eyes tracked every movement he could see, or swear he could see. The cone of light landed on something small and hairy. The Irken let out another croaky cry as the little dark huddle leapt towards them. It scurried across the floor, its claws scrabbling for purchase.

"It's just a cat." Dib didn't even sound shaky, or spooked, or nervous.

Zim backpedalled until he walked into the old bed post holding his chest.

Dib lowered the camera and sighed. "Damn. I thought I'd really caught something."

"You call this fun? Walking around in the dark and cold, getting spooked by spooky things? I'm done!"

"Zim, you can't leave now! We haven't explored the whole house yet! Look! How about I buy you a double scoop of whippy ice cream on the way back? With sprinkles. And chocolate sauce?"

His shoulders hunched. "ONE more room!"

"Why are you in a hurry to leave, Zim? You're not frightened are you?"

"Me? Frightened? Never! Why would this shambolic hovel and its many cats and dirt and shadows frighten me? And I demand three scopes, Dib! With one of those wafer things on top!"

Dib gave him that long, assessing look before suggesting; "Let's rest awhile. You look white Zim. I've never seen you so pale."

"That's because you keep shining the light on me!"

"If you say so."

Gir walked between them, holding up a dark, drooping object. "Can I keep it?"

It had to be the ugliest doll in the world, and Gir had found it. It had black buttons for eyes, stitches for a mouth, and a fabric so dark it was hard to tell if it was stained from dirt, or was just made that way. Zim didn't even need to get close to know how horrible it was. "Drop it! This instant! It's germy! And probably still carries the Black Plague or something!" The nausea he'd felt all morning had just intensified. It took all he had to not hold his spooch like a little weakling.

"Zim...that's not..." Dib began before a flicker of crimson eyes stopped him short.

Gir hugged it dearly to his chest. "But it was lying there, all sad and lonely. It's sick and needs medicine."

Dib wasn't sure if he should carry on by himself, or stand and watch this father-son debacle.

Something in the Irken's eye twitched. "Gir. Don't make me ask again. Drop it, and leave it. You have plenty of toys at home. Clean toys. Huge toys. I've bought you so many that they've filled an entire room I'd sooner use for crates of ammunition and explosives!"

Gir's pleading did not weaken. "Please. Let me take care of it."

"Zim?" Dib's voice cracked at the edges. "Is something...going on between you the two of you?"

He stamped his foot. "No! Nothing is going on! He's just being stupid!"

"Just let him keep the toy. That curse thing? I made it up."

"And what else did you make up?" He growled.

"Everything else that happened here is true. It's just the curse...thingy. I wanted it to sound dangerous and fun. To...you know...entice you. Otherwise you would have cautioned off the proposition. And I... sorta wanted you to come along, like before."

Git kept stroking the doll's head, and mumbling sweet nothings to it. Zim could not have asked for a dumber pair of idiots.

"Can we just...move on, please?" He looked to Dib, hoping his brave face would cut it.

The human seemed to understand, and nodded. The alien softened with gratitude.

They came upon an ornate door that had glass panels set in a colourful arrangement of stags at play. Dib set his hand around the handle, grunting when he found this locked as well.

Zim watched him produce a hairpin.

"Really?" He asked, raising his antenna. "You've smashed your way in so far."

"Just give me a sec." He knelt down, poking and then turning the hairpin with his tongue sticking out. Gir was cuddling the toy, like, really cuddling it. Zim knew he shouldn't stare, but he did anyway, haplessly confused at how quickly and surely Gir got attached to things, especially dirty things.

The human was working at the lock with the concentration of an electrician.

"Hey, uh, Dib beast? How'd you know about this 'supposed' wish anyway?"

"It says it all in this document." With one hand he tugged out a sheet of paper from one of his many hundreds of pockets. Zim gave it the briefest of frowns. He did not have any interest in reading such gibberish. "Edward was obsessed with power. Magic. Even reincarnation. They say he turned his daughter into a crow. Ah! Done it!" There was a click and he swung the door open before stepping in like an eager paparazzi. Zim shambled after him, claws locked together over his chest with Gir tiptoeing beside him. "This is where Edward must have kept his worldly collections from his travels!"

There was an open ouji board on a shelf, and taxidermy animals lined the walls, particularly over the grand desk that faced the door they'd walked through. Their little glass eyes caught the glow from Dib's flashlight, making the dark pupils seemingly smoulder or move from within.

Zim gazed nervously up at the many severed heads, running a claw up and down his neck as the assembly of beasts looked down at the intrusive trio.

Little bronze and stone figurines were peppered here and there, some of the larger ones standing by themselves, others sitting proud on shelves, table stands or along the windowsill. As Dib filmed each statue, he noticed they weren't very human. He could not determine what they were trying to represent, just that they were beastly, with curving lips, lots of teeth, talons, spikes and antlers. Some twisted and coiled like serpents. Others stood poised with rearing legs. Some of them looked almost Nordic, while others carried the mythology of the Aztecs, and of Quetzalcoatl. A statue of Anubis stood on top of a pile of books lathered with dust. Its eyes were a curious and discomforting pink.

As Dib went round, scrutinizing every item with his video cam, he recognised several cultures. Sumerian. Mayan. Greek. The library in the study suggested that Edward had studied these cultures, but to what end?

Zim walked up to a chess set, its pieces frozen in the midst of battle. Whoever had played last had left the game halfway through.

A gelded frame thinly held a bleak and painted scene of a church overlooking stone carvings with a thick and dark forest at its back. Dib approached the painting and raised a hand to it almost in greeting before touching its undulating surface. It wasn't a church built in the Christian fashion. It was Nordic, without steeples or crucifies. Perhaps, in a time long gone, Edward had come across such a place as this, but why commission a painting of it? And if he'd seen it for sale, why hang such a morose scene in his study? The painted stone carvings littering the grassy dune outside the church were supposedly graves, but they weren't the kind of graves he was accustomed to seeing.

Zim put his shoulder against an overly heavy and ornate chair that wasn't quite aligned to the desk, and pushed it closer with Gir helping. Clambering onto its patchy and worn leather seat, he started ramming open the drawers of the master desk with little to no consideration. "This human guy was such a hoarder!" He started going through the hidden troves of items, and was visibly getting more disappointed with the poor finds. There was a load of old documents, ink pots, feather quills, letters and notebooks with various black and white photographs. He picked up what looked like an old glove and threw it over his head in his hurry to get rid of it.

"Zim! Stop being so careless! This stuff's important!" Dib stooped to pick up the glove, only to nearly drop it himself. It was leathery to the touch, and gave off a old musty smell as if it had been made out of human skin.

"How can dry paper, ugly glovess and..." He picked up an ink pot, "...these things...? Be important? There is nothing of value here! What is it with you humans? Surrounding yourselves in cold dusty rooms with cold, dusty filth!" He threw the inkpot over his shoulder. It hit a statue's antler that broke off at the stem.

"Zim! What did I tell you! Be more careful! This place is historical!"

"This place is horrible!"

Putting down his equipment, Dib found the fallen antler and tried to adjust it back onto its tiny receptacle. While he was trying to twist it back into place, the bare bulb above them flickered into life, and the bookcase suddenly shrugged to one side. Dib leapt back, emitting a stunned sound as an opening appeared behind the shelves. Zim peered round from behind the chair's backrest.

"Finally! Some sophistication!" Zim sniped as the bookcase swung to a standstill.

"Wow!" He peered down the slim entrance, not knowing what to expect. Within was a bare room covered in hieroglyphs. In the centre was nothing more than a sundial.

Zim was beside him in a nanosecond, prompt and stern, until he saw what was within. "Oh? Is that all? He had a secret chamber... for a boring ornament? Who _was _this guy?"

"Mad, apparently." Dib went into the room with hesitance this time, aware that the bookcase could close on him.

The sundial, if it was a sundial, had a flat surface. Etched around its circular rim were symbols of objects, animals or planets. In the centre was a brass compass-like pointer that might have been taken out of a clock. There was nothing incredible about it, with no jewels or precious gems or gold to be seen to explain why it had been hidden away.

The base was cracked – its surface pocketed in marks. Dib bent lower, noticing inscriptions running along its cracked and weathered base.

"Zim? What does it say down here? Can you translate it?"

The Irken gave him a_ 'do I really have to' _look with his long, incredulous pause. A moment later he folded his arms. "I am not your walking translator, Dib! You have the big head! YOU figure it out!"

Dib raised his eyebrow before shrugging and turned back to the inscriptions. Some of them had faded. He'd studied language in school without much passion or interest. "I recognise it. It's Latin." He said out loud. "Hang on. I might have something that can translate it, since you're so stubborn and all." He produced his phone, touched an app, and then steadied its tiny camera over the inscriptions. It wasn't a very good translation. Every word floated back in English in fits and starts.

"Well, what does it say?" Zim grated, hands now on his hips.

"Oh, so now you want to know?"

"Hey, you dragged me into this shithole!"

"Fine, fine. Okay. It says: Hereby, you stand. With a gift from another land. Not all is what you seek, and beware of how you speak." He shook his head. "The rest is hard to read. Something about... asking any desire. That's about all I can get from the inscriptions."

Zim filled the gloom with crackling laughter. "What a load of hocus pocus and hogwash! I can't believe you believe this stuff!"

Dib pushed himself back to his feet and touched the flat surface of the relic. "Wouldn't it be fun to give it a go?"

Zim could barely restrain his own mirth. Every time he looked at the artefact, or at Dib's dumbfounded face, it gave him new gales of amusement.

Gir hopped and skipped along, holding the ugly little doll in one hand. "Can I wish for giant pizzas? With giant pepperoni on them?"

"See! You're getting as bad as he is!" The Irken rubbed irritably at his forehead. "What could you possibly wish for anyway? A smaller head? A less repulsive pair of eyes so that you can drive better?"

"I'd wish for a friendlier alien sidekick!"

"Hey! You're _my_ sidekick!"

"It wasn't my fault! I couldn't stop in time!"

"So wish it back to life! Well? Go ahead!"

"Fine! I will! Only to shut you up!" He looked down at the artefact, both hands cupping its rim. "I wish upon this... thing... to bring back that stag I accidently," he glimpsed at Zim as he spoke the words, "run over. There! You happy?"

"Only when I'm back in the car with you driving us home!"

Dib rolled his eyes. "Fine." He lifted up his recorder. "I've about captured all I can."

They left the chamber, and the bookcase snapped closed behind them, causing them both to flinch.

A window blew open, sending in a whirlpool of leaves and snow. It could have just been a rusty latch falling open, or a loose window swaying open from a trace of wind, but the soldier dived for the doorway. "Hey! Zim, it's just the wind! Come back!"

He was having none of it. He was done with the dusty old rooms, done with the spooky spiders, the cold, the cats! Suddenly there was nothing better in the world than being snuggled on the sofa and watching cartoons with a huge cup of coffee in his hand.

He almost lost his footing on the way down, and his escape was not helped by the musical box he swore he could hear playing from that child's bedroom. Maybe the rhyme was stuck in his head.

The downstairs foyer was dark and unwelcoming. Things scurried away from his presence, their tiny eyes flashing. Zim picked up a stick and held it out before him like a sword as he tried to navigate his way around. "Back, back! Whatever hell spawn you are!"

He made his clumsy way to the pantry, flying around with the stick held high in preparation to lunge at anything and everything. There was that giggle again, coming up from the dark and dust. Beastly human children could have scuttled their way in there to prat around behind the brick walls.

A hand lurched out of the dark and he swung his stick at it. Dib caught it in time before it could hit him. "Zim! It's just me!"

He stopped, breathing hard.

"Can I take the stick before you hurt someone?"

Removing the stick seemed to temporarily defuse the Irken who gawped after it, even after Dib had thrown it into the dark corner of the pantry.

From the broken window they'd originally climbed through came more giggling. Gir poked his head over the top of the windowsill.

"Gir? How did you get outside?" The human asked.

"I climbed through the hole!" He declared without missing a beat. "A squirrel showed me how!"

"Do squirrels always teach him things?" Dib asked the frazzled Irken.

He grunted. "Apparently."

After the undignified process of being lifted to the table and then back outside, it was good to finally breathe in the chilly winter air again.

Once he had joined him, Dib was going through his many gadgets, looking less than pleased. He'd caught little else but closing doors, opening windows and scuttling shadows with a lot of alien in all his shots. He'd been expecting to capture undeniable proof of ghosts, but this 'Edward' hadn't shown up today. But for the Irken, it was a mediocre victory. Dib would no doubt find some other remote and 'haunted' place to investigate before long from some crappy news article he'd found. He collected them like photos for a scrapbook.

"I might find... something... once I go back and edit my recordings." The investigator was saying.

"Just get us home, Dib worm. The only thing I wish for right now is three scopes of ice cream and a warm place by the fire!"

"Are you sure you're not a cat?"

Gir was tugging at Dib's coat tails. "Ice cream! Ice cream! Please! I NEED! ICE CREAM!"

They got in the car after Dib had offloaded his equipment. He adjusted his rear-view mirrow. "Relics that grant wishes, huh? I wish that were true."

"I wish for a red blankie for my doll." Came Gir's happy reply.

Dib hit the ignition. The Toyota growled and farted out smoke and Zim tensely froze, imagining himself bent over in the cold, having to fix the car's engine again while the sun went down. Then the engine gave a healthier rumble and Dib patted the steering wheel affectionately. "Whew, thank goodness. I thought your bodge-job was going to make it explode or something."

"Hey! My 'bodge-jobs' as you call them do not make things explode!"

"Yes, they do Zim."

He put the car in gear, and soon they were travelling along the same road they'd come down earlier. Zim was fetching sly looks between the human and the road as they slowly approached that place where the murder had been committed.

"Zim. Stop that. Didn't you used to experiment on animals every day?"

"Yes. To improve them! And see what they're capable of! Obviously horned antlered critters need better Dib-sense!"

They came to that patch of road. Sure enough the telltale dark patch was still there, but as they looked, there was no corpse to be seen on the verge. Dib slowed down, stopped the car and got out. He followed his own tracks when he'd dragged the thing to the bushes, but of the stag there was no sign.

"The dumb beast must have just brushed itself off and walked away." Zim observed from his cushion-pile on the car seat.

"Animals can't just do that, Zim! Someone must have taken it!"

"Who'd be so mad as to do that?"

"I dunno! A hunter I guess, taking it as a trophy or something."

"Isn't there some ice cream you should be getting?"

"Okay, okay!" Dib seemed reluctant. He came over, hand on the car door, and peered out into the wooded outskirts as if he could somehow spy the animal. But there was nothing, just autumn leaves and spindly branches.

He got back into the car. Just as the Toyota drove away, a stag with black antlers and a gold coat proudly stepped onto the road, watching the car as it vanished over the brow of the hill.


End file.
